Cantwell blasts Superfund enforcement

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Edmonds) plans to discuss a GAO report she had requested, and which is due out today, during a news conference today in a Ruston yard that was abandoned by an Asarco contractor after last week's bankruptcy filing.

She told the Tacoma News Tribune: "This report confirmed what I feared. Corporate polluters are using bankruptcy and other corporate gimmicks to get out of their environmental cleanup obligations. Corporate polluters are contaminating our backyards and water, and then sticking us with the mess and the cleanup bill. I'm tired of this abuse. ... There’s more this administration could be doing to hold Asarco and other companies like it responsible for the harm they’ve done.”

Well, it turns out the EPA has already moved to take over the abandoned clean up projects.

The EPA Superfund was created in 1980. Cleanup cash came from a special tax on oil and chemical producers and an environmental tax on corporations. But the tax was allowed to lapse in 1995, on Clinton's watch.

At the end of the day, Cantwell is ignoring the fact that the teeth were taken out of the Superfund law when a Democrat was in the Presidency. And the Bush administration has already taken responsibility. Of course, there are the allegedly irresponsible corporations who are bankrupting to avoid the horrendous costs of cleanup. But corporations don't vote, which makes them an easy target.

So, from this observer's perspective, the whole thing is a cheap shot.